Local planes free of snakes; city isn't

August 18, 2006|CHRISTINE COX Tribune Staff Writer

Snakes on a plane? Not in South Bend. John Schalliol, executive director of South Bend Regional Airport, says he and other longtimers at the airport don't recall any tales of serpents slithering on, in or even near a plane. "Our electrician can remember two garter snakes" in the fields, he says. That's good for Schalliol. Snakes are his second-worst fear, next to alligators, so he won't be seeing "Snakes on a Plane." "Oh, not me," he says. "I can't even think about them." Even if the airport is safe, South Bend and its surroundings are full of snake stories. Sgt. Eugene Eyster has caught robbers and murderers without fanfare in his 32 years as a South Bend police officer. "But nobody forgets that snake," he says. He's referring to Monty Python, a 10-foot-long, 20-pound python who escaped from his cage on the porch of his Frances Street home on Aug. 13, 1985. Hysteria erupted. Yards were checked, picnics were canceled, and lights stayed on all night. Police searched in vain. Three weeks later, at about midnight on Sept. 4, Eyster was off duty and driving on East Jefferson Boulevard when, he says, he "thought a crack in the road moved." Thinking of orders to destroy the snake, Eyster ran over it. In his rearview mirror, he saw the snake was unaffected, so he backed over it. "I didn't know snakes don't have bones," he says. "It was like driving over a fire hose." The snake then moved into some bushes, and Eyster radioed his station. A fellow officer gave Eyster a shotgun, and he unloaded all four rounds at close range. Another officer fired a final shot. The owner of the snake threatened action against the city but never did take any, Eyster says. So will he see "Snakes on a Plane"? "No," he says quickly. "I still don't like snakes." Michael Hargreaves, however, likes them to the point of being nicknamed "Snake Man." Before he retired as training chief of the Mishawaka Fire Department, Hargreaves answered his share of snake calls, assisting police and others. One memorable capture involved a red-tailed boa that had been slithering around a vacant apartment in Mishawaka. A young woman had moved in recently. "She put groceries in the refrigerator and got up the next morning, and all the groceries were warm," Hargreaves says. She pulled the refrigerator from the wall, thinking she'd forgotten to plug it in, and discovered the coil of a boa constrictor. "Then it moved. She freaked out and called police," Hargreaves says. Of course, the police called Hargreaves. "This poor critter was only 5 feet long," he says. With the assistance of Mishawaka police Cpl. Larry Burcham, Hargreaves captured the snake and then kept it for a few years, before it died of old age. He currently has two pet snakes at home. He plans to see "Snakes on a Plane." "That's going to be a cult classic," he says. Staff writer Christine Cox: ccox@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6173